Category Archives: Yiddish

Skierniewice Map Translations and More

12 Sunday Jul 2020

Posted by in Skierniewice, Uncategorized, Yiddish

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A few readers have helped me translate the Skierniewice map I posted recently. Thank you Pnina, Ellen, Wendy, Marion, Mark, Roberta, and the reader els! It’s taken me a while to figure out Photoshop, but here is the hand-drawn map with English translations:

SkierniewiceMap_Yizkor_translationfinal

Hand-drawn map of Skierniewice with English translations

I found the map in the Atlas of Memory Maps virtual exhibit, but a reader located a better resolution digital copy in its original source, the Skierniewice Memorial Book by Sefer Skernievitz, available in the New York Public Library Digital Collections. (Thanks els who shared this link with me).

Even with all the help I received, figuring this map out has been tricky. I cross-referenced what translators told me with the current Google map of the city, as well as this map of Skierniewice from 1915, from the website Mapster (again, thanks els for the info):

SkierniewiceMap1915_GermanMapOfRussianPartition_annotatedfragmentfinal

Detail of 1915 Skierniewice Map. Blue lines indicate the boundaries of the hand-drawn map

As best I can tell, the hand-drawn map distorts some dimensions and locations. It draws the river parallel to the downtown blocks, when in fact, the river veers off from the downtown grid at an angle, so it’s much further away toward the southwest than the northwest (see the blue lines on the map). Considering the map in the Yizkor book was drawn from memory, it’s no surprise such inessential details would be distorted. Have you ever tried drawing a map of a place you used to live? It must have been even harder when you didn’t see it on a digital map all the time.

The word labeled “barrack” in the lower left was a tricky one. My cousin Pnina, who remembers some Yiddish from her childhood, translated it as “Kasharen. ” Roberta confirmed that “Kosharn” means “barracks.” I also found an article in a regional newspaper about the demolition of the last barrack buildings in March 2020. They were located in this same part of the city, between the river and the downtown area on 1 Maja Street. Other landmarks that still exist include the Archbishop’s Palace (Pałac Prymasowski) to the north, as well as the Market Square and Senator Street.

I’m still not sure of the location on these maps of the synagogue building that survived and currently houses a plumbing supply store. Based on the street grid, it appears to be the Torah Study Place on the Yizkor map. But what about that building on the 1915 map that appears to be shaped like connected large and small circles and positioned right inside the intersection? I’ve labeled it “synagogue?,” and similarly Pnina suggested the building in that position on the Yizkor map, labelled with a Star of David, might be a synagogue. I wonder though. Might this have been the mikvah? After all, it’s on what’s labelled Mikvah Street, and Virtual Shtetl also says the mikvah was on this street (its contemporary name is Okrzei Street).

UPDATE: My cousin Pnina told me today that the building I labeled “synagogue?” on the first map was definitely a synagogue. The small box in the lower left of that block has a Star of David and above it is written “The Shil,” which means “the synagogue” in Yiddish. So could that mean that the intersection was altered after the war so the synagogue ended up on the opposite side of the street? She also says that the “Torah study place” was probably a school, not a synagogue. If anyone reading this knows anything that might clarify things, please let me know!

Memory Map Exhibition includes Skierniewice, the Piwkos’ Hometown

08 Friday May 2020

Posted by in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Museum, Piwko, Post-World War II, Skierniewice, Synagogues, Yiddish

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The Atlas of Memory Maps exhibit features maps drafted by non-experts in an effort to preserve the memory of their hometowns, which had been destroyed or radically transformed during and after World War II. Most were published in Yizkor books, memorial books compiled by Jewish survivors. The exhibition is mostly in Polish, but includes some English-language information. The maps contain notations in Yiddish or Hebrew. This virtual exhibition by Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Center includes maps from Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, Moldavia and Slovakia.

I found a map of Skierniewice among over 150 included in the exhibition. My grandfather Hil Majer Piwko was born in there in 1854, as were his siblings Jankel Wolf (1857), Urysz (c. 1861), Dawid (1862, d. 1865), Nusen Dawid (1866), Chawa (c. 1871), and Fajga (c. 1878). It’s where Hil Majer brought his bride Hinda Walfisz in 1873, and where they started their own family. It’s also where his parents were buried (Cywia Rajch in 1862 and Chaim Josef in 1912), and probably his stepmothers, too.

Here is the map from the exhibition:

SkierniewiceMapInterwar_onlineexhibit

Map of prewar Skierniewice drawn from memory by an unknown author

Comparing it with a contemporary map, it’s hard to figure out exactly how they match up. Maybe someone who can read Yiddish can help me by translating the words on the map. Please leave me a comment if you do! I think the rivers on each map are the same, and the space marked with crosses in the bottom center of the prewar map may be the green space marked “Church of St. Stanislaus” in the bottom right of the contemporary map.

SkierniewiceMap2020

Map of contemporary Skierniewice. The site of the synagogue is marked with a black dot surrounded by a grey circle. Source: Google Maps

I’ve been to Skierniewice twice, with my cousin Krysia in 2013 and with my cousin Bob in 2018. Little remains of the town’s Jewish heritage.

Skierniewice Rynek in 2013
Krysia and me in Skierniewice, the birthplace of our great grandfather. April 2013
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With cousin Bob, the former synagogue in the background–it’s now an electrical supply store

The synagogue, though the exterior is well maintained, now houses an electrical supply store. On the road running parallel to the river, a few tombstones have survived in the old Jewish cemetery, but they are in what is currently the backyard of a private residence. I wonder if this cemetery was included on the prewar map? The newer Jewish cemetery contains  many more surviving tombstones as well as commemorative markers outlining the history of the town’s Jewish population. It is located beyond the bottom edges of these maps, off a dirt road a short ride south of town.

 

Located in Lublin, Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre is one of the oldest and most active Jewish heritage organizations in Poland. About its origins, Tomasz Pietrasiewicz writes:

The changes brought about by the fall of communism in Poland in 1989 initiated the process of regaining Memory by the Polish society, and Lublin was among many Polish cities which had to face their forgotten past.

When we began our activities at the Grodzka Gate [which historically separated the Jewish and Catholic districts of the city] in the early 1990s, we knew nothing about the history of Jews in Lublin. We were not aware that the enormous empty space on one side of the Gate conceals the Memory of the Jewish Quarter. We did not realize that the Gate leads to the non-existent town, the Jewish Atlantis.There is a huge parking area, lawns and new roads where there used to be houses, synagogues and streets. A large part of this area, including the foundations of the former Jewish houses, was buried under a concrete cover, and the memory of those who lived here was hidden as well. You cannot  understand Lublin’s history without these empty spaces near the Gate. For the NN Theatre, they have become a natural setting for artistic actions, Mysteries of Memory, which uncover the memory of the past while mourning the victims of the Holocaust. (from “History of Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre“).

More information about the exhibition and Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre can be found at the following websites:

Jewish Heritage Europe

Grodzka Gate-NN Theatre Center

 

Sholem Asch: A Yiddish Playwright Ahead of His Time

11 Thursday May 2017

Posted by in Jewish Culture, Kutno, Pre-World War II, Yiddish

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Kutno’s native son Sholem Asch is in the news a hundred years after writing a play that deals with issues that remain controversial today. His work also shatters a lot of assumptions about Jewish life in Poland in the early 20th century–Written in Yiddish, it features a brothel, a Torah scroll, and love between two women. Asch’s play God of Vengeance was written in Yiddish in 1907 and first produced in Berlin in 1910. I found an electronic version of the 1918 English translation (you can follow the hotlink above). In the play, Yekel, who lives with his family above the brothel he owns, tries to improve his family’s status by commissioning a Torah scroll and marrying his daughter Rifkele to a Yeshiva student. Instead, the young daughter falls in love with one of the prostitutes and in a pivotal scene, they kiss. The play highlights the tension between piety, reflected in the Holy Scroll that is supposed to bring respectability to the family and the economic and sensual attraction of the brothel downstairs, as well as observations about women’s empowerment and oppression.

The play has been getting attention recently because of Paula Vogel’s Broadway play Indecent, a play about a Yiddish play that was ahead of its time (as the NPR report about Indecent is titled). Vogel’s play centers around the 1923 staging of God of Vengeance in New York’s Apollo Theater (also on Broadway), notable because the whole cast, the producer, and one of the theatre owners were arrested and eventually convicted of indecency. The play had been controversial where it had been staged throughout Europe, but it also received critical acclaim.

The popularity of Indecent has led to renewed interest in Asch and his play, which was recently produced at LaMaMa Experimental Theater in the East Village (In God of Vengeance, a Nice Jewish Family Lives Above a Brothel).

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From left, Eleanor Reissa, Shayna Schmidt and Shane Baker as Orthodox Jewish parents and their marriageable young daughter in Sholem Asch’s “God of Vengeance,” at La MaMa. Credit Richard Termine for The New York Times

 

 

Chil Majer Piwko’s death notices in the Yiddish press

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by in Archives, Family, Piwko, Polish-Jewish relations, Yiddish

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After reading my previous post about Chil Majer Piwko’s death notice, my cousin Raphael from Switzerland sent me a couple more that were published the same day (June 16 1929). These were in the Yiddish newspapers Hajnt and Der Moment.

Chil Majer Piwko's death notice from the Yiddish-language newspaper Der Moment

Chil Majer Piwko’s death notice from the Yiddish-language newspaper Der Moment

Chil Majer Piwko's death notice from the Yiddish-langugage newspaper Hajnt

Chil Majer Piwko’s death notice from the Yiddish-langugage newspaper Hajnt

Besides wanting to share them, this gives me the opportunity to revise what I said about Chil Majer. My conversations with a couple of readers helps me realize my hasty use of the term “assimilated” (even though it is widely used in the historic literature) probably does not communicate what I intended. What I meant to signal was that Chil Majer likely considered himself Polish as well as Jewish. But I have no doubt that he was also a very religious man. Nor did I mean to suggest he was on the road to adopting Polish culture in replacement of his Jewish faith. On the contrary, I’m interested in the places and spaces where Polish and Jewish affiliations intersected, complemented each other, or existed side by side.

The fact that his death notice appeared in three Jewish newspapers emphasizes even more strongly the important position Chil Majer filled in the community. The Polish-language Nasz Przegląd tended to take a more integrationist stance, in the sense that it catered to Jews who were comfortable operating in the Polish language, and who tended to invision a place for Jews within the broader Polish society. The Yiddish-language Haynt and Der Moment were competing papers that were Zionist in orientation. As such, they tended to highlight the interests of Jews as distinct from the Polish (Catholic) majority. The publication of the death notice in both languages shifts the emphasis, indicating an allegiance to both Jewish autonomy and to Polish-Jewish allegiances.

For more information about the Jewish press, see a brief summary by the Yivo Institute or Angela White’s dissertation on the Polish language Jewish press.